Apple is now valued at $3 trillion as of the New York stock market open on Friday, marking a significant milestone for the iPhone maker and the broader technology sector.
Apple stock (Stock ticker: AAPL) jumped 1.5% in early trading on Friday, as it opened at $191.78, above the $190.74 level that represents a market value of $3 trillion. Apple’s market capitalization is now greater than the market capitalization of the bottom 202 companies in the S&P 500 combined. The company is also worth more than each of the following S&P 500 sectors individually: consumer goods, energy, utilities, materials, and real estate.
While Apple briefly topped a $3 trillion valuation in intraday trading in early 2022, it never opened above that level, nor did it close above it — adding pressure on the stock to do so on Friday. But there is reason to believe that the stock could continue to rise.
The tech giant has already had a significant uptick at the start of the year, rising nearly 47% in 2023 beating out
dow jones industrial index,
Standard & Poor’s 500,
And heavy technology
Nasdaq
—higher than 3.5%, 15.5%, and 31.5%, respectively.
It’s a “historic day for the tech sector,” Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, wrote in a note Friday. “The bears and Apple skeptics continue to rack their heads as many called Apple’s ‘broken growth story’ this year against a tougher backdrop that we firmly believe the exact opposite has happened.”
The stock is still looking good for gains, according to Wall Street, with the shares earning the average Buy rating among nearly 40 analysts surveyed by FactSet.
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Analysts at Citi joined the chorus of bulls on Thursday, kicking off coverage of Apple with a Buy rating and a price target of $240, indicating a gain of 27% from Thursday’s closing price of $189.59.
“Apple is weathering the overall slowdown and inflationary pressure on consumer spending by consistently capturing share of Android phones, and we see upside potential of 30% more than current levels,” the analysts wrote in a note.
“We believe Street underestimates continued gross margin expansion,” they added, noting that the shift in iPhone sales toward the premium segment, increasing share gains in China and India, continued chip self-design, and higher margin services sales mix were all tailwinds.
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